


after the fact

by grue



Category: Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)
Genre: Coda, Gen, afterwards
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-21
Updated: 2009-12-21
Packaged: 2017-10-04 22:00:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/34554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grue/pseuds/grue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's the day after Christmas, and no one in Hallowe'en Town knows what to do with themselves.</p>
            </blockquote>





	after the fact

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Deepdarkwaters](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deepdarkwaters/gifts).



They all stand outside of Jack's Manor, watching the snow melt melt-- no, leave, and the residents play in the resulting slush. Everything is wetter than normal, everyone slips more often, and Jack is up there in his tower doing what it is he does the day after Christmas.

(This is the first after Christmas ever, so what is it he does up there? Saxophone Man wonders as he cranes his neck up, looks through the gate and to the front door. Cook little children? Mourn the death of his shiny sleigh all coffiny and delightful? Read a book?)

"My legs are gone, I tell ya," Little Man behind Strings mutters, grumbles, grouses. He has the most cushy job out of all them, living permanently inside the Burly Bassman's instrument, but he yells anyway. "Can't feel them no more, gone disappeared on me."

Burly Bassman and Accordion Hermaphrodite nod their heads as much as they can manage, rackets of noise strumming and hawing out of their respective instruments.

"If you can't feel them, they're probably gone," Saxophone Man says. "But how will you know for sure?"

Strings mutters some more, doesn't give an answer. Such is life, the unknowable right at the front of the crusade. He mentions his lack of something every Tuesday, but since today is so special, he's stepping up and putting forth two complaints.

"We could put up posters?" Accordion offers. "Maybe the doctor's seen them? Or birds. Birds could've took them."

"There aren't any birds here, I tell ya!" Little String Man snarls. "Stop saying they are!"

Saxophone Man raises a hand to mediate, but is cut off by a wailing boy with stitched shut eyes. He bawls and tumbles forth, rubbing his balled up fists that are flaking dead skin right into his eyelids. "They're melting, they're going away!"

"Who is?" Bulky Bass asks, stretching out one lanky arm to stop the boy before he hits metal grating.

"The snow people!" The kid wails back, still rubbing his eyes and flaking all over the place. He points one chubby finger behind him, and bawls some more.

The quartet looks over, and indeed, the snowmen are melting to nothing. The Wolfman not helping matters by kicking at the base of one near the outskirts. Littlest Mr. Hyde climbing up one and shrieking about ice cold massacres all the while.

"We'll play a march, will that help?" Saxophone asks. It's the best he thinks they can do, since it's hotter than hot-- too hot for snow people, anyway. Usher them into the next next world all nice like, to some groovy tune.

Corpse child hiccups and nods his head, toddles back over to the rising water and lowering artificial people. Girly Gargoyle slumps over and squawks at him, in a comforting fashion perhaps. Mummy stays away, because he doesn't want his bandages to be used as tissues.

The Band gathers in the centre of the puddle-- now ankle-pool, supposed-- and Accordion counts off with three snaps of his fingers. They try for jaunty, Bass slow behind as always but he catches up ten beats in. It makes Wolfman stop his scratching, and the Vampires peek around the corner from the stone wall.

Girly Gargoyle and child flaking skin start to sing and splash, and Saxophone man smiles around his mouthpiece as well as he can.

_ "We are here to say good-bye  
Because this town is going dry,  
We young ones are going to mourn  
Because the Snowmen are going away!_

They were fun here from Sandy Claws  
Gift he gave us for being so mean  
Bid farewell to the Snowmen gleam  
In our town of Halloween!"

"What's going on down there?" Jack hollers from his tower. Everyone stops dead, looks up at him startled or in slight surprise.

Middlest Mr. Hyde tries to take off his top hat, use it as a speakerphone like the Mayor does, but the wind picks up and takes it off, murmuring "Who's there" and tossing the hat in the face of the Clown.

"Get some eyes and you'll see us!" He screeches and bats away the offending article.

"Go scare a party of accountants," the wind says back with a harsh blast, upending the Clown and making him fall off the unicycle onto the ground.

Mummy claps his hands and laughs, points at the angry clown in glee. "He went splash!"

(The Clown and The Wind have a long-standing feud going, because both claim to have the best scare-record in all of Hallowe'en Town. The Witches have decided to not tell them that both are wrong, that Bedbug has the record just because he sleeps loud all year round, thus scaring the most humans and small domestic pets.)

Jack Skellington pops down in a flurry of motion, twisting in air and landing on his feet with a smack. Harlequin claps his hands, his hair forming a 1 and a 0. The vampires titter to themselves from their perch, because they don't like getting wet on the evil evil cobblestones.

Saxophone Man nods at the advancing King. "Good one, Bone Daddy."

"What's going on, what is the shouting about?" Jack asks, looks right at dead kid and narrows his eyes. "It's the day after Christmas, what could ever be wrong now?"

Mummy waves his hand, dodges around the Clown as he lumbers up, rushes over to Jack. "The Snowmen are melting, Jack! We're singing a goodbye song!"

"A goodbye song, eh?" The King nods his approval, and sidesteps the young ones. "I'll go ask the professor if there is something to be done."

Everyone raises a cheer, and Accordion starts on the tune they played last night. Burly Bass is only three beats behind this time, he's getting better. And Saxophone joins in, happy to keep the cheer up.

Though he wonders. Is there any more tunes for them to play? And if there are, does Jack know of them? He resolves to ask after the King returns, and keeps up the high pace so the kids can slide in the slush to a jaunty beat.

Big Witch Elphaba zooms overhead, cackling and screeching her way through the sky, and Accordion stops mid-key. Points up at her, and shouts, "Birds! I told you, birds!"

"No, no, no!" Little String Man screams back at him, and bangs his forehead on the Bass strings. "Not. A. Biiiiiiiiiiird!"

Saxophone Man keeps playing, and ignores them for the rest of their argument.


End file.
